My DH is in the construction business and we considered OB because we knew contacts for more than 80% of the project. However, we went with a GC for many reasons the most important being that DH is a busy man and couldn't be onsite all the time. As it turned out, the GC's experience was invaluable. Our home was custom designed for us and thus many unexpected structural questions came up which someone not building residential homes everyday would not be able to handle. Knowing subs and knowing the inside and out of house construction are two different things. OB houses usually take much longer and as logicalone says, that costs money in interest. Our GC used some of our subs and some of his. His subs had no problems with schedule and quality of work because they have worked with him numerous times and know what he expects. If they don't perform, he doesn't use them again. It's a real headache if you hire a sub who does inferior work. If you're not in the "know" about subs, what will be your basis for hiring them? Lowest or highest bid doesn't ensure quality work. You might want to look at the recent post about a lien being placed on a GW member's home. That is another area which you need to be fully educated in before you try to OB.

Well, we decided to take delivery of Natuzzi couch number 2. Delivery men unwrapped it on our front patio so that we could check it before bringing it into the house. And yup, to our dismay, it was exactly like couch number 1 - had the same loose/broken frame issue. So we had delivery men pack it back up and remove couch number 1 too for return to Sears. Went to the store to get our refund and checked the floor model - confirmed that it's sturdy (so why weren't the two that they delivered to me sturdy?). Got our money back then went couch shopping, ended up at the store where we purchased our Stressless chairs in November and bought an Ekornes couch to go with the chairs. Cost double what the Sears couch cost; we didn't want to spend that much since it's just the two of us and we'll be sitting 95% of the time in the chairs, couch is really just for company. But we're happy with our new purchase - it's the Ekornes Manhattan, it'll be in the same Paloma leather as the chairs and brown wood colour. We picked a new colour of theirs called "Stone" which unfortunately means the furniture has to come from Norway, it's not stocked in their New Jersey factory. We have about another 8 weeks til we get the chairs and 12 weeks til we get the couch. And then we'll be happy. I've definitely joined the "do not buy Natuzzi camp". tess

What a nightmare!! I feel for you so much, I can't imagine going through all of that for so long of time. What stress you must be feeling! Go after the guy and get what is due you, he has made your life miserable. Find a qualified contractor to make it right like you dreamed. Good Luck!

Thanks, WoW, but what I wish I could find out is what the U-Factor is for my 21 yr old, double-paned, low-E windows. My best guess is that it's somewhere between .55 and .40 but that's purely a guess. Our windows are of a lower quality than other brands. We've had to replace at least 5 windows due to failed seals; one of them has failed again. We're replacing 6 windows as part of an upcoming kitchen and DR remodel, plus the one window with a failed seal. We also have 4 windows with spring issues. They aren't easy to open and close, plus they make a racket when we do and I'm really tired of dealing with them. The other issue is that our existing windows have very little UV blocking. Since we plan to stay put for at least 10 more years and since we're replacing nearly half of our windows already, we fell for the "while we're at it" scenario and decided to replace all our windows. WoW, why do you think that we'd be better off going for as much passive solar energy as possible? At the time of year when passive solar heat would be great to have, we don't see the sun as much as we'd like. We do get lots of sun in summer. I grew up without AC in the Midwest (was well into high school before we got AC) so I know all the tricks to keeping the house as cool as possible in summer. However, even doing all of that, our upstairs gets really warm and our AC has to work hard to cool it down for comfortable sleeping. We can't open our windows to cool our house as often as we used to because too many neighbors have fire pits. My asthma and wood smoke are a life-threatening combination. I hate not being able to open our windows to cool evening breezes but I also prefer to stay out of the ER. Anyhoo, that's why we want to avoid passive solar heat gain as much as possible in summer.